LOS ANGELES -- A federal judge in Los Angeles has postponed sentencing for a man who became a key figure in the national debate over medical use of marijuana. U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said he would like to impose a more lenient sentence on Charles Lynch than the five years required by federal sentencing guidelines, the Los Angeles Times reported. Lynch, 47, was convicted of violating federal drug laws last year for distributing medical marijuana ... [full story]

SAN ANTONIO -- Three people found dead in their San Antonio, Texas, home probably died of carbon monoxide poisoning, police say. The bodies of a father, his son and daughter-in-law were discovered Thursday and investigators found a Hummer in the house's garage that had been allowed to run until its fuel tank emptied, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The car's keys were reportedly still in the ignition when police arrived. Detective Raymond Roberts, who wouldn't release the ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- A political science professor from California says he found a batch of previously undiscovered letters from, to and about Benjamin Franklin in a London library. Alan Houston uncovered the 47 letters while poring over manuscripts for a book he was writing on Franklin, The Washington Post reported Friday. Houston, who teaches at the University of California at San Diego, said 18 of the letters were written by Franklin. The professor said that as he looked over ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Many Americans are finding they can live without some of household appliances they once considered absolute necessities, U.S. researchers say. A national survey indicates substantial numbers of people no longer list microwave ovens, television sets and even home air conditioning as necessary, the Pew Research Center reported Friday. In a telephone survey of 1,003 adults conducted in April, the center's Social & Demographic Trends project found that about half or those questioned now see microwaves, ... [full story]

LEXINGTON, Neb. -- A former Nebraska schoolteacher must serve two 8-to-10-year prison terms for having a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old student, a judge said. Dawson County, Neb., District Court Judge Jim Doyle Thursday sentenced Kelsey Peterson, of Lexington, Neb., to serve the sentences concurrently with a six-year federal sentence she received last year on a conviction for crossing state lines with a person younger than 18 to have sex, the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald reported. Prosecutors ... [full story]

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A stolen state government laptop computer contains personal information about more than 1 million Oklahoma residents, officials said. The state Department of Human Services said Thursday the laptop, stolen from a state employee's vehicle in Oklahoma City on April 3, has not yet been recovered, The Oklahoman newspaper reported. "The risk of the data being accessed is low because the computer uses a password-protected system," DHS Director Howard Hendrick said in a news release. ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The number of arrests of U.S. border enforcement agents on bribery charges jumped from 8 to 21 in the last fiscal year, statistics indicate. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency says the trend is alarming as Mexican drug cartels step up their efforts to bribe and corrupt border officials, USA Today reported Friday. An additional 14 agents have been arrested so far this year. Since 2004, 84 border officers have been arrested and 64 ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama convened a high-level, contentious debate in the White House over whether to release Bush administration torture memos, sources say. In the April 15 meeting, CIA Director Leon Panetta and four former CIA heads argued against releasing interrogation details contained in four "top secret" memos in which Bush administration lawyers sanctioned what many have called torture against terrorism suspects, and Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. administration figures, including Condoleezza Rice and John Ashcroft, approved harsh CIA interrogation methods as early as summer 2002, documents indicate. Declassified information about the evolution of the Bush White House's decisions to employ interrogation methods on terrorism suspects that some consider to be torture -- such as simulated drowning known as waterboarding -- were contained in Senate Intelligence Committee documents released Wednesday by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, The Washington Post reported. A timeline ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama will soon be receiving his long-sought, super-secure BlackBerry, sources told The Washington Times. Obama had been forced to give up his beloved but insufficiently secured BlackBerry after his inauguration and in the interim has been made to attach it to a cumbersome handheld device known as a Sectera Edge, supplied by the National Security Agency, the newspaper reported Thursday. The added device is necessary to ensure that the president's e-mail, instant ... [full story]

DENVER -- A Colorado man who admitted to killing his date when he discovered the person was a male has been sentenced to life in prison without parole, authorities said. A jury in Denver deliberated for only two hours Wednesday before convicting Allen Ray Andrade, 32, of first-degree murder and a hate crime in the bludgeoning death of Angie Zapata, 18, of Greeley, Colo., the Los Angeles Times said. Zapata, a transsexual, met Andrade, a convicted felon ... [full story]

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- A coastal South Carolina wildfire burned 40 homes, forcing 2,500 people to flee in the North Myrtle Beach area, officials said Thursday. No injuries were reported. City spokeswoman Nicole Aiello told the Myrtle Beach Sun-News that most of the homes were located at a beachfront resort west of the Intracoastal Waterway. The fire sprang to life Wednesday afternoon and continued into Thursday. It had covered at least 8,500 acres, officials said, predicting the ... [full story]

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut legislators approved a bill allowing for same-sex marriages after moving to exempt religious organizations, observers said. The compromise enabled the legislation to pass both Connecticut's House of Representatives and Senate Wednesday night after a lengthy and often heated debate that explored themes of religious freedom, discrimination and the state's history of tolerance, The Hartford Courant reported. A spokesman for Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell told reporters she would sign the measure, which ... [full story]